Common White Belt Mistakes: Over Reaching

*EDIT* Julia from JiuJiuBJJ recommended that I clarify this one a little bit to make it more clear what I'm talking about. So here we go!

*EDIT 2* The lower res video was annoying me. So I uploaded the original HD cut. The black box STILL annoys me. Gotta figure out WTF my camera/editing software is doing...
This video is of me rolling with one of our whitebelts. In it he makes several mistakes which are common to white belts. I'm going to discuss a few of them with a primary emphasis on what happens when you over reach during your passing attempts.

Video Summary:
At the beginning you can see where I establish my grips and insert a DLR hook. I then strip his grips and while I'm slapping his hands away I barely shift my hips and transition to his back. I roll through to mount, then back to his back and continue to control him, then move to the armbar for the finish.

Minimum effort for maximum results is the name of the game. He pushes forward, but doesn't know how to get past my hooks, so I'm able to control the game from there. He never is able to get ahead of me during the transitions so he never really has a chance to avoid my attack.

Mistake:
His biggest mistake, and what allowed me to sweep him is his continued attempt to attack my collar to the exclusion of everything else. Even after I have established hooks he continues to ignore my legs and grasp at my collar.

Recommendation:
What he should have done is to stop grabbing at my collar and grab my pants instead. Allowing me the use of my legs makes it infinitely more difficult to pass my guard. It's commong for white belts to attack as far forward as they can reach and leave half of their opponents weapons available.

Instead you should begin by controlling the ankles and work inwards in order to immobilize your opponents weapons in the most effective way. Controlling the ankles, then the knees until you are past the hips, then pinning the hips and beginning to isolate and attack the arms while working to disrupt your opponents posture to prevent them from escaping.


Protip:
Don't be over eager to attack the neck. Ignoring your opponents legs is a huge mistake.

BJJ 11/11/11 - Light Work

Pre-Workout meal: Banana! 1/2lb! NOMNOMNOM!
Ate that at 5:30ish and started rolling about 6:15. Felt quick, plenty of energy. But was RAVENOUSLY hungry by 7:30.

Kris and Will showed up to roll and we had some good stuff. Kris has really good standing guard passing and I'm really enjoying working with him because he's fairly innovative and does a lot of research outside of class so he always has some new stuff to try. He's also quick and fairly strong, while still being my weight so it's always a good roll with him. He's been ready for his blue belt for a while now. I did get him with the figure four counter to the DLR again, and this time he didn't see it coming. The more I mess with it the more I think that might actually be a legitimate counter in some circumstances. We'll see....

Rolling with Will is a whole different experience. He trained with us for about a year and was a couple of months away from his blue belt when life interfered and he ended up not training for about a year. He's been back on and off the last couple of months, but he's put on a bunch of weight and is back around 235 now. He's still got great base and is strong and fairly explosive, but his cardio is complete trash now. He ends up using occasional bursts of power to defend. It's valuable because it helps me work on my ability to react to explosive movements.

I was able to continue to implement my game. Working the scissor sweep and the various combinations off of it and the single collar choke and armbar and triangle offense. Worked on the flower sweep as well.

From the top, I really think I'm still missing something in my guard passing, my worst position is still trying to pass long range halfguard, but I don't think it's as bad as I think it is. For some reason I have the idea that passing guard should be as effortless as sweeping someone when I get it right, and when I hit my Teleport Pass it IS that easy, but if I really have to be low and tight to hit that pass properly, and when I'm getting stopped by long range half it's because I'm passing too upright. I'm getting closer and closer to making this my primary focus for a while, just passing guard and then letting my opponent reguard with minimal effort and then working to pass again.

Had to ditch out before the main class started though. Was STARVING. Came home and ate some salmon cakes. NOMNOMNOM!

As a note, I need to rewrite my gameplan again. It's been further refined and trimmed, and reorganized into sequences instead of being divided by position.